1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voice recording/reproducing apparatus, or more particularly, to a voice recording/reproducing apparatus for digitizing acoustic information and recording it on a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital information recording/reproducing apparatuses referred to as digital recorders have been developed in the past. The digital information recording/reproducing apparatus digitizes a voice signal picked by a microphone or the like, and records the resultant digital signal in, for example, a semiconductor memory. For playback, the voice signal is read from the semiconductor memory, and converted into an analog form. The resultant analog voice signal is then output in the form of voice from a loudspeaker. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-259700 has disclosed this sort of digital information recording/reproducing apparatus.
In recent years, voice recording/reproducing apparatuses having the ability to manage schedules in response to voice have been proposed. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-336094 has disclosed a calendar apparatus including a display unit on which a calendar is displayed, and having the sound recording ability to record or play back a schedule for any day in the displayed calendar.
Moreover, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-336094 has disclosed a calendar with a sound recording ability. In the calendar with a sound recording ability, a schedule is input by voice in units of a day of a calendar, and recorded on a disk or the like. Signals representing input schedules for days are selectively reproduced by voice.
However, the recording/reproducing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-336094 can record only one schedule item for each day. When a new schedule item is added to the recorded schedule for a day, schedule items that have already been recorded are deleted.
Attempts have been made to enable recording of a plurality of schedule items for each day in order to overcome the above drawback. According to related arts, for reproducing a plurality of schedule items for each day, a playback button must be pressed for each item. This leads to deteriorated user-friendliness.
The recording/reproducing apparatus that has been disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-336094 requires a large space to be occupied by the display unit because a calendar is displayed over the surface of the display unit. This causes an increase in the size of the apparatus itself. The apparatus is therefore unsuitable for portable use. The calendar alone is displayed on the display unit. At present, it is hard to readily learn for which day data (schedule items) representing a schedule has been recorded. If schedule items have been recorded, it is hard to readily learn how many items have been recorded.
There is an increasing demand for a portable recording apparatus with a schedule management ability these days. Since this sort of recording apparatus is being designed more and more compactly, the display unit is requested to have a smaller size.
Furthermore, conventional voice recording/reproducing apparatuses with a schedule management ability including the recording/reproducing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 6-336094 have the number of schedule items indicated for each day on the display unit. However, the number of all schedule items that have already been input is not indicated. This poses a problem in that it is hard to grasp the whole of a schedule folder. Moreover, although there is an upper limit to the number of schedule items that can be input, the number of remaining schedule items that can be input is not indicated. It is therefore impossible to learn how many more schedule items can be input.
The first object of the present invention is to provide a voice recording/reproducing apparatus making it possible to record and exactly learn a plurality of schedule items.
The second object of the present invention is to provide a voice recording/reproducing apparatus making it possible to immediately learn recorded schedule items without the necessity of increasing the size of the apparatus.
The third object of the present invention is to provide a voice recording/reproducing apparatus with a scheduling ability making it possible to exactly grasp the states of sound files recorded as schedules using a limited display space.
Briefly, a voice recording/reproducing apparatus in accordance with the present invention comprises of a recording medium, a recording means, a playback means, and a playback manipulating means. The recording means records by voice the items of a schedule for each day on the recording medium. The playback means reproduces by voice the schedule items for each day recorded on the recording medium. The playback manipulating means is used to designate a day of a year for which a schedule must be played back and to instruct the reproducing means to play back the schedule items for the designated day. The recording means can record a plurality of schedule items for each day. All the schedule items for the designated day are played back responsive to one manipulation performed on the playback manipulating means.
These objects of the present invention and the advantages thereof will be further apparent from the detailed explanation given below.